


What's In A Name

by lyn452



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 16:28:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18578239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyn452/pseuds/lyn452
Summary: (Based on potential Episode 3 spoilers / definite spoilers for the rest of season 8) Daenerys and Jon finish their conversation during the Battle for Winterfell.





	What's In A Name

**Author's Note:**

> I've been listening to Jenny of Oldstones on repeat all day. Then I wrote this.

"You don’t get to run.”

Daenerys closed her eyes. Damn him. Why had she ever let him ride Rhaegal? Then with his blood she supposed he might have always been able to. She just realized that he rode the dragon she’d named after the brother she’d never met.

His father.

“I thought you were going to stay with your army?” She tried convincing him to join her, but he’d refused her, wanting to be with his people. His people who had been so cold to her, who treated her own people even worse.

Jon blinked down at Winterfell from the cliff they were on, to the battle beginning. “I’ll join them soon. We need to finish talking.”

She now understood why he’d been avoiding her lately. She wanted to run from him. She needed time to process this information, time to think through what it meant. Time she didn’t have. Why tell her now?

“I don’t want the bloody throne,” Jon said.

Daenerys wondered how many Targaryens had said that before him. Duncan, certainly, who gave it up for his Jenny of Oldstones. She was certain there were others. The power was great, but it came at a terrible price.

You were alone. Always.

It was a lesson she’d forgotten. She had found him and thought perhaps she had been blessed for once by the gods. The timing was awful, but at least she had him for a time. But that had been a cruel jest. Everything she had wanted was so close to being her reach, she feared death, but she hadn’t thought to see this coming.

Foolish green girl. How could she ever forget the lessons she’d learned so long ago? She felt like that girl again, living under Viserys’ cruelty and sold like a mare rather than a person. With no power over anything, not even her own life.

No. She was not that person anymore. She was the Dragon Queen. Feared the world over.

“Dany,” Jon reached for her, but she stepped away.

“Daenerys,” she corrected him. She had been lax with the nickname, had even grown to love it dropping from his lips in a moment of passion. But she couldn’t stand to hear it now.

Jon flinched, and damn her weak heart, it hurt her to hurt him. She wanted to comfort him. Wanted to give him something, but it would break her to give him anything right now. She was barely hanging on as it was. She tried to see the battle below them. Tried to look for the Night King, but her emotions continued to roll within her.

“Why tell me now?” Daenerys asked. “Why couldn’t it have waited?” Did he want her dead? Was it done on purpose to distract during battle? With her out of the way, he would be the sole Targaryen, no messy complications.

Jon looked to the armies colliding, his soulful eyes reflecting the fires. “It had to be me. I couldn’t let you find out from Sam or Bran blurting it out in some public place. I...If I could take it back I would. If I could go back and prevent anyone from learning the truth, myself included, I would. I hate knowing. I’ve wanted to know my entire life and now I’d give anything to not now.”

Daenerys wanted to reach for him, wanted to thank him for his consideration for her, but she stayed perfectly still, grasping on her anger more tightly. It was the only emotion she could handle right now. “So who do you want to marry?”

Jon whipped around. There was anger to his tone now. “What?”

She heard the hurt in his voice as well. It reflected her own at the thought of him with another woman. A woman who could give him what she couldn’t. Daenerys grasped onto that anger even more tightly. “You are a Targaryen now, Aegon. It is your duty to produce heirs, continue the line. When this is all over, you will sit the Iron Throne, and I will return to Meereen to reign as queen there.” No one could take that from her. She’d earned Meereen and Dragon’s Bay.

And she wouldn’t have to watch Jon with his new family. It would kill her to watch the kind, gentle, brave man she’d grown to love share that love with another. She had to leave.

“Fuck that,” Jon’s temper let loose. He grabbed Daenerys. “Aren’t you listening to me? I don’t want the fucking thing. I just want you. I’ll win you that damned throne if you want it, but the only thing I want is you. I’m still just Jon Snow. I’m still just me. You know me. Better than anyone. Please, Dany.” His voice cracked a bit.

The look he gave her broke her heart. She imagined him then as a little boy. A bastard who would never presume to want anything. Her mind cruelly pictured their own little boy, with her silver hair and Jon’s soulful eyes.

She cut the thought off before it could hurt her further.

“I know it wasn’t easy to be a Snow, but being a Targaryen wasn’t easy either. While you were safe in Winterfell, I was trying to sleep with hunger pains in some Essos alleyway, running from the men trying to kill me. You will marry who you must and produce heirs. It’s what is required for the good of our house.”

Daenerys saw Jon’s anger return. “No. This isn’t you.”

“It is,” Daenerys said. She thought how Jon had never really witnessed her ruthless side. He’d seen her cold queen act, but he’d never seen her execute anyone. “I’m sure your friend Sam already told you.”

Jon let go of her, as if she’d burned him. Daenerys closed her eyes to the pain she’d caused him. “I know what it is to be a leader. I understand making hard choices. I can forgive you that, Daenerys.” His voice lowered to a growl. “But think if you think for a second that this act of yours is going to put me off, then maybe you don’t know me at all.”

Daenerys felt her guard drop, felt that crack in her armor, and her wide eyes met his in her vulnerability. It was a mistake, as she could see every emotion of those dark grey pools, just as she was sure he could see all of her.

She saw a commotion in the distance, something happening in Winterfell. She broke her gaze from his and scrunched up her eyes to better see.

Her distraction brought Jon back too. “The dead are coming,” he said. Reminding himself more than her, Daenerys suspected.

But then she saw what was walking out of the crypts. “The dead are here.”

 

* * *

 

Rhaegal was not Ghost. Jon could feel a connection with the dragon, but it was nothing like with his direwolf. Ghost was almost another part of him, but Rhaegal was separate from him. The dragon seemed to understand him and followed his commands fine, but Jon could tell something was off. That the dragon was closed off to him in some ways.

If Jon had to guess, it was two things that caused this. Unlike Ghost, Rhaegal had been fully grown when Jon met him. Ghost had been a pup who’d depended on Jon, he’d grown with Jon looking after him. It had built an unbreakable loyalty between them. But Rhaegal had grown with Daenerys feeding him meat scraps as a hatchling. She had told Jon stories of cradling her dragons in her arms and how they liked to climb onto her shoulders and extend their wings as though they were flying when they were little.

Jon could barely imagine it. How could have such massive beasts have ever been that small? But he understood what it meant. Mother of Dragons was more than a title, Daenerys was a mother to her children, as she called them, and they were just as protective of their mother as she was of them.

And Jon had just fought with the Dragon’s Mother. Jon wasn’t sure, but he feared that Rhaegal was more inclined to take his mother’s side over Jon’s. Targaryen blood or not.

Drogon had made his feelings clear enough, snapping and growling at Jon as he tried to say goodbye to Dany when she left him on that cliff.

Jon watched the battle below, feeling helpless. But he had to stick to the plan now that Daenerys had refused, wanting to protect her people. Jon couldn’t blame her, he itched to kick Rhaegal up to burn as many wights and White Walkers as possible. He’d learned from taking back Winterfell, when you made a plan, you had to stick to it. He would’ve lost that fight if not for Sansa. He knew beforehand what that fucker had planned, yet he still let himself get trapped.

But that was for Rickon. Was he just supposed to let his little brother die?

Jon frowned, brooding. He reassured himself that he was doing the right thing. Bran had wanted to be used as bait. It just didn’t feel right. Jon was built for fighting, not waiting.

Daenerys should have stayed up here. She was better with the dragons than he was, he couldn’t even pronounce the Valyrian commands she gave them. He hated her for a moment.

Why didn’t she listen to him? He didn’t want the fucking throne. He didn’t want to marry another. Didn’t want to be a Targaryen. Didn't want the fucking name Aegon Targaryen. How could she possibly see him as a threat? Didn't she know him at all?

A dragon’s roar broke Jon from his thoughts, and he looked to the skies, looking for the Night King.

Rhaegal cried out beneath him, and his wings began to beat and the dragon lifted up. No, Jon thought. Wait, no, not yet. He tried to communicate this to his dragon, thinking and shouting it, but the beast didn’t know common tongue.

And the only Valyrian Jon had ever learned had been in the bedroom, and he doubted shouting, “Make me come, my white wolf,” would do anything to improve his situation with the dragon. Rhaegal dove for Winterfell, crying out again.

Jon recognized this cry. He’d heard it when Viserion fell. The dragon was in distress, calling for his fallen brother. The thought chilled Jon’s blood. Was Viserion here?

And if not, where was Drogon? Jon looked around in the skies and he saw nothing. His heart sped up. Where was Drogon?

Where was Daenerys?

Rhaegal took him right to her. Drogon was on the ground and surrounded by the dead. The dragon was spitting fire all around him, clearly furious.

And worried, for Jon saw what the massive black beast was standing over. He was defending his mother, Daenerys, who was lying on the ground. Not moving.

Jon felt his heart stop. No. No. Not her. Not again. He would not have the love of his life die in his arms. No.

Rhaegal landed, his flames joining his brother’s to keep the dead back, and Jon barely waited to hop off and run to his love.

Drogon attempted to stop him, roaring at him, as though Jon might hurt her. For once, Jon wasn’t terrified of the huge dragon. He merely ran around him to get to Daenerys. He could hear the dragons fighting above him, but he didn’t care. He only saw Daenerys.

Why had they fought? It was so stupid now. Who cared about the throne? About House Targaryen? About their blood relation? It didn’t matter. None of it did.

Jon fell to his knees and now that he was by her, he hesitated to touch her. What if he hurt her?

But he saw her chest moving. Her breath was shallow, but it was present. Jon felt the tears escape as he gathered her into his arms. “Dany, Daenerys, please hold on.”

She couldn’t die. Not now. Not like this. He couldn’t lose her.

He couldn’t lose her.


End file.
